


why stargaze when i can look at you instead

by froggieyama



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Canon, Cooking, Domestic Fluff, Falling In Love, First Kiss, Getting Together, Living Together, Love Confessions, M/M, Mutual Pining, Relationship Study, Secret Crush, Stargazing, Trans Akaashi Keiji, Trans Character, Trans Male Character, Trans Sakusa Kiyoomi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-18
Updated: 2020-09-18
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:08:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26336968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/froggieyama/pseuds/froggieyama
Summary: sakusa longs for the warm touch of akaashi's slender fingers against his skin, longs for the press of a softened body against his ownthey stargaze that night, like so many nights before, but this time sakusa cannot find it in himself to look anywhere but akaashi's form, moulded by the single yellowed light above them-written for keira for the hq rarepair exchange
Relationships: Akaashi Keiji/Sakusa Kiyoomi
Comments: 1
Kudos: 33
Collections: Haikyuu Rarepair Exchange 2020





	why stargaze when i can look at you instead

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fubuki_ice](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fubuki_ice/gifts).



Sakusa liked living with Akaashi.    
  
It had seemed a little outlandish, at first, to dorm with his teammates’ best friend, but over the almost eight months they’d spent together in their tiny apartment, it had become a normality. Living alone now felt like a world away. 

Akaashi was a good housemate. He always did the grocery shopping, helped clean up after dinner, and was quiet when he came home from late nights at work. He could cook, too, though they often took turns. Sakusa would loathe Akaashi if he ever carried too much of the domestic burden. It wasn’t fair to be expected to care for the complete needs of a professional athlete, not when he did so much already. Sakusa assumed the other man had done enough of that already, being friends with Bokuto. Akaashi’s social life was busy: he was often out with highschool friends or coworkers, but thankfully avoided bringing them home.    
  
His boyfriends on the other hand? He’d brought one too many home for Sakusa’s taste. They were polite, sure, and Sakusa could swear he’d seen some of their faces before, but it still pained him. Each time he heard the door creak open and two sets of footsteps slink into the other bedroom, he longed for it to be him; longed for the press of Akaashi’s warm body against his own.   
  
The other man was attractive, face softened from years of office work and sharp edges hidden beneath a thin layer of chub. He’d filled out since high school, and in Sakusa’s mind that only made him more handsome. The effects of testosterone had done wonders for the other man, though it wasn’t as if he hadn’t passed in his younger years. 

That was something else that had surprised Sakusa. He’d only met one other trans man over his years (Kageyama Tobio) and now he’d somehow stumbled upon a trans roommate. Akaashi, exercise stress lessened after highschool, had been able to complete his transition before they’d even met. What Sakusa found most refreshing was the way Akaashi so effortlessly tucked himself into a box of masculinity while still allowing himself to be feminine. 

He usually hated seeing an excess of skin; even the Jackals locker room was far too much for him, but seeing Akaashi shirtless was a breath of fresh air Sakusa didn’t know he needed. Two lines, both curved up across his chest, perfectly framed the darker skin and showcased the remnants of muscle still hidden beneath flesh. The difference between Akaashi and everyone else, he supposed, was his cleanliness, his need to be presentable at all times. He was ethereal, even when his hair was mussed from sleep and he was curled over a cup of hot coffee, and every day Sakusa found himself falling harder.  
  
  


* * *

Akaashi entered the apartment with a soft “I’m home,” taking his shoes off and leaving them at the door. Sakusa didn’t need to look to know they were placed right next to his own. He stretched with a groan, joints popping the regular seven times before he relaxed.    
  
“Have you eaten?” he asked. 

Sakusa looked up from his knitting and shook his head. “I was waiting for you. I could cook, if you like?”    
  


Akaashi lifted up a bag of fresh ingredients, the rustling overtaking the ambient noise of the flat. “I’m making onigiri.”  
  


* * *

  
He watched as Akaashi cooked the filling for the onigiri and delicately poured Kita-san’s rice into the rice cooker. His actions were rehearsed, effortless. Sakusa knew Akaashi had done this more times than either of them would ever know, and yet every time he watched the simple process, he couldn’t help but feel like it was endearing. He’d not experienced many people cooking for him as domestically as this, and he still connected it with a simple yet deeply meaningful display of affection.   
  


Sakusa found himself getting lost in the motions of the other man as he made them dinner, unable to look away as slender fingers worked the rice. He’d felt those fingers on his skin many times before, once frightening brushes of skin had moulded into hours of massages and combing through knotted hair. Each one of those interactions left themselves burning in Sakusa’s mind long after Akaashi pulled away.    
  
Akaashi was warm. Everything about the older man felt like the calmness of the sun on a spring day, gentle on the skin and comforting. He was not the warmth of summer, of Bokuto or of Hinata, and yet Sakusa found himself craving him more. Sakusa was cold, like bitter days in the dead of winter. Time spent alone and shaking and  _ empty _ . The balance they shared, a gentle luke-warm medium, made Sakusa wonder if he could ever handle anything stronger. 

“-Kusa-kun,” Akaashi spoke, drawing him out of his thought, “do you want to eat here or on the roof?”

Sakusa looked to the window and listened. The night, luckily, had not found ferocity. “On the roof, if that’s alright. The stars will be pretty tonight.”

  
“Of course,” Akaashi said, placing the freshly-made fried onigiri in a container, the clear material quickly going opaque from the steam. He grabbed a few other snacks from the bag he’d brought in earlier, and two drinks for good measure. There was a can of alcohol for Akaashi - whiskey highball no doubt - and a freshly-made milk tea for Sakusa, a rough scrawl of the other man’s name on the plastic. Akaashi knew him too well, knew the exact order of milk tea he liked down to the sugar content, and it was frightening. Sakusa had never let someone get this close before, not even Komori. But despite his fears, despite everything, he couldn’t find it within himself to pull away.   
  
Their large blankets under each of Sakusa’s arms and the food precariously held in Akaashi’s slender hands, they left their apartment and headed to the roof. It was a short trip up by elevator, and one they’d travelled many times prior. The roof was a safe space from the world. On nights like this, where the sky was clear and the wind was still, Sakusa found himself unable to keep his thoughts from wandering back to the man next to him.    
  
A single, yellowed light illuminated them and their possessions. They sat in relative silence, enjoying every mouthful of the homemade onigiri and the other food. Every now and then, Sakusa would allow himself to give a hum of gratitude for Akaashi’s cooking. He couldn’t find the words, not now. When Akaashi looked ethereal. Not ever. Maybe someday he’d be able to tell Akaashi just how much he meant to him.   


* * *

Food now long gone and Akaashi a little tipsy from his drink, they turned their eyes to the stars above. 

“Do you remember them?” Sakusa asked. “The constellations.”   
  


Akaashi smiled. “Of course I do.”

He pointed to each and every single one of the patterns Sakusa had drawn in the sky all those months ago, recalling their stories as if they were his own. It was moments like this, when Akaashi showed how much he truly cared, that Sakusa felt himself falling. It was easy to brush aside his feelings in everyday life. But now, when they bubbled up from his gut and clung to his throat, tightening around it like a vice, he realised just how far down he’d let himself fall.    
  
_ Keiji _ , his traitorous mind provided,  _ his first name is Keiji _ . He chose it himself, or so Sakusa was told, drew scribbles of syllables until he found ones that fit him. It made Sakusa long to call him it more, just so the other man knew just how much he understood, how much he cared. If Akaashi was the stars, Sakusa was the man who spent every waking moment studying their patterns, their shapes, their meanings, even when they were hidden by the sun. He wasn’t the first to find Akaashi behind the overwhelming power of those who surrounded him, Sakusa knew that for sure, but in some way he felt as if he’d found more of Akaashi than anyone else ever had.    
  
For the second time that night, Akaashi pulled him out of an ever-spiralling train of thought. Only then did he realise he was staring. Akaashi was looking at him too, but with a readable air of confusion about him, as if he’d never noticed someone caught up in his beauty before.    
  
“Sakusa-kun,” he said, leaning the slightest bit closer, “I was talking to you but you haven’t responded for a while, are you alright?”

  
Sakusa gulped. Fuck. How long had he been staring at Akaashi’s face?

“I-I… I’m sorry. I got caught up in my thoughts.”

“Oh?” Akaashi grinned. “I thought the stars were the most important thing in the world for you. You’ve never lost focus on them before.”

  
“There’s something… someone… who’s more important.”   
  


“Oh?” Akaashi mused, shifted so he was close, close enough that Sakusa could make out the faintest smudge of a birthmark under his eye.   
  
Sakusa wanted to move away, to pretend what he said wasn’t as much of a confession as Akaashi needed to realise his affections. But he couldn’t, couldn’t let Akaashi sit there, lips slightly parted and cheeks dusted pink.

“It’s you. You… I’m infatuated with you.”   
  
Akaashi’s fingertips pressed against Sakusa’s hand, warm. His smile widened.    
  


“I’m infatuated with you too, Sakusa.”   
  


And just like that, he leant in and closed the gap between them fully.

Akaashi’s lips were warm, just like his hands, and the perfect mixture of wet and dry. They were painfully soft, tended to so intently over years and years of self-care. There were no fireworks. There was no imploding of the universe or a sudden revelation at how well they fit together. There was only the gentle pressing of two bodies under the stars, joined at last.    
  
Akaashi’s hand cupped Sakusa’s jaw as they took a breath. The rise and fall of Sakusa’s chest reminded him that he was alive. This wasn’t some cruel dream, some fantasy his mind was producing: this was real. Usually, a touch so intimate would have been rejected, but Sakusa was too caught up in the press of skin on skin, warm body to warm body, to care.    
  
Lips pressed against the corner of his mouth before Akaashi pulled away. Sakusa opened his eyes to find Akaashi’s up close, tracing the curves of his face.    
  
“I’ve wanted to do that for far too long,” he whispered. The confession still hung in the air, clogging up Sakusa’s throat. Yet again, he remained silent. Instead, he leant forward to connect them again.   
  
That night, with Akaashi’s sleeping form on the other side of his bed, rising and falling in a slow rhythm, Sakusa finally let himself whisper Akaashi’s name. 

  
“Keiji,” he said to no one, but it felt like the world was listening. 

  
He’d never slept easier than he did that night. 

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading !
> 
> this has been so fun to write and i really hope i did this ship justice.
> 
> to keira: i hope you enjoy your gift ! hopefully i fit the vibe you wanted 
> 
> feel free to scream at me on twt @ froggieyama


End file.
